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00:00 Now, as a reminder, despite the temporary truce that we've seen, the war in Gaza continues
00:05 with no end in sight, and civilians are bearing much of the brunt.
00:09 Since October 7th, the Hamas attacks across southern Israel, at least 1,200, more than
00:14 1,200 Israelis have been killed, while over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza,
00:19 and over 200 killed in the West Bank.
00:22 John Linden joins us on the program now for more.
00:25 He's the executive director at the Alliance for Middle East Peace.
00:29 Thank you for joining us, sir.
00:30 Now, you've been working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for over a decade.
00:35 I'd like to know, have you ever seen the situation as bad as it is now?
00:39 No, and nobody, frankly, alive has seen the situation as bad as it is now.
00:45 It is the most devastating moment for Israelis and Palestinians, really, since 1948.
00:50 And I think you phrased it very well.
00:53 Civilians were paying the heaviest price.
00:54 We've had wars before, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.
00:57 We've had intifadas, of course.
00:59 We've never had this scale of civilian loss of life, nor this scale of trauma, visited
01:05 on so many people in Israel and Gaza, in the West Bank.
01:08 It's truly unprecedented.
01:10 A lot of your focus has been on the role that civil society can play in any lasting resolution.
01:17 Given the situation as it stands today, do you still have any hope about a role that
01:22 civil society can play?
01:24 What can civil society groups more generally offer that governments have clearly thus far
01:28 failed to bring to the table?
01:32 I mean, civil society groups can be the key to breaking the current impasse.
01:35 I work with over 170 different NGOs of Israelis and Palestinians, Arabs and Jews, who are
01:41 building partnership and equality and a sense of solidarity that can really generate the
01:45 trust, the ideas, the new leaders that I think everybody has sensed has been needed even
01:49 before October 7th.
01:51 And I'm seeing it every day.
01:53 Israelis and Palestinians turning up and working together in small and big ways.
01:56 And I think the question of how it can impact the politics is really important.
02:01 We need to see a diplomatic horizon provided by the international community.
02:05 And we really need to see a process that can lead toward an end to this conflict.
02:09 But critically, there needs to be a bottom up process as well.
02:12 Trust needs to be rebuilt between both populations.
02:14 And politicians need to be incentivized to take the sort of risks and moves towards peace
02:18 that are necessary.
02:19 And that requires robust civil society working at scale on both sides within Israel and in
02:24 Palestine and cooperating with one another, coordinating their efforts and calling on
02:28 the international community to take the sort of action necessary.
02:30 And we would love to see the international community really scale and strengthen those
02:35 NGOs.
02:36 They can be the key to really moving into a very different paradigm for Israelis and
02:39 Palestinians.
02:40 Do you think the drive that that or the energy that people in these NGOs have to fight for
02:47 peace has been shattered at all, given the violence that we've seen not only in those
02:52 attacks in Israel, but also, of course, in Gaza?
02:56 Not shattered, but there's certainly been trauma and it's been tested.
02:59 I mean, many of the victims in both Israel and Palestine of this shocking outbreak of
03:04 violence have been members of our organizations, our members and their family members and communities.
03:09 The Kibbutzim in the south of Israel is overrepresented with peace builders.
03:13 Vivian Silver, a leader within ALMEP and many of our members, was tragically killed on October
03:18 7th.
03:19 And this last few days dealing with members of ours who are trying to get their family
03:22 out of the Gaza Strip.
03:24 So they've certainly been tested.
03:26 But what I've noticed is that by and large, and I don't want to sound naive about this,
03:30 many perhaps most are recommitting to this work.
03:33 They see the abyss, right?
03:34 They see what the alternative is, Israeli and Palestinian tragedy and violence.
03:38 And they understand the only alternative, the only real security can come from from
03:43 partnership and from a real diplomatic agreement.
03:45 And we've seen new people join.
03:47 It's important to note.
03:48 I've had many conversations with people who've lost family members who haven't been peace
03:52 builders since October 7th.
03:54 They've said things to me like I'm now committing for the rest of my life to work towards Israeli
03:58 Palestinian peace.
03:59 That's the lesson I'm learning from this trauma.
04:01 That is certainly reassuring.
04:03 Now, lately, the attention has, of course, been focused, understandably, on the October
04:08 7th Hamas attacks.
04:10 But even before October 7th, 2023 was the deadliest year in the West Bank since since
04:17 in decades, really.
04:21 To what do you attribute the surge in violence that we saw there prior to the October 7th
04:25 attacks?
04:26 I mean, number one, it's the diplomatic inertia and the fact that the conflict remains unresolved.
04:30 Right.
04:31 And we know that these periods of international inattention are sort of rhetorical support
04:35 for two states, but no real action on it.
04:38 It creates a vacuum sometimes where violent actors will fill it.
04:41 I think the other big dynamic has been settler violence, which has been increasing year upon
04:45 year in recent years.
04:47 We have some quite extreme elements within this current Israeli government who are openly
04:50 allied with some of the forces in the West Bank who have been visiting violence upon
04:55 Palestinians.
04:56 And we've seen an explosion of that violence since October 7th.
04:58 I mean, you mentioned that last year was the most violent year since the second Intifada.
05:02 This year overtook it.
05:04 And even just since October 7th, we've over 240 Palestinians who've lost their lives in
05:08 the West Bank.
05:09 And a troubling number of those are from settler violence, direct engagements from settlers,
05:14 sometimes with the idea of F looking up, looking on.
05:16 I want to really note this.
05:17 This should go beyond politics.
05:19 We welcome statements from the United States, from the European Union, from France, really
05:24 urging Israel to pay attention to this and to make sure that there is a sense of justice
05:29 for those that carry out violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
05:32 And we also know that Shin Bet, the internal Israeli security agency, has also warned the
05:36 government of Israel that this settler violence risks tipping things into much further escalation
05:42 in the West Bank, which considering what's going on in Gaza, everybody should be trying
05:46 to avoid.
05:47 You mentioned, I did want to talk to you about that settler violence in the West Bank.
05:51 You mentioned a little bit or at least suggested why there's been little response from Israeli
05:54 authorities.
05:55 But the Palestinian Authority also really seems to be powerless to carry out its own
06:00 security to prevent attacks on its own residents.
06:03 Does its government at this point have any power at all?
06:06 I mean, they are doing security coordination.
06:09 They are, according to people I've spoken to, assisting in keeping the situation in
06:13 the West Bank from fully boiling over.
06:15 It's important to note that they have lost a lot of legitimacy and credibility in recent
06:19 years around issues of corruption, but also this lack of a diplomatic vision.
06:23 Right.
06:24 Like Palestinians frustrated that the PA doesn't seem to be providing a horizon that will lead
06:28 to self-determination.
06:29 And critically, they've lost control in large parts of the northern West Bank.
06:33 And we saw over the last 24 hours in the city of Jenin, which was the site of a huge military
06:38 operation this summer in July, more pronounced violence.
06:41 This is a place where the PA has not really had full control of Jenin for many, many years,
06:46 really, but most acutely in the last year.
06:48 And what we've also seen is this disturbing rise of new militias, particularly in the
06:52 northern West Bank, groups like the Lions Den, who are attracting young Palestinians
06:56 towards very radical and violent ideas.
06:58 And all of this is, I'm not trying to place any culpability on anybody other than those
07:03 committing acts of violence.
07:04 But structurally, we have a situation where lost and hopeless and angry young people are
07:08 being drawn towards terrible ideas.
07:10 And we need to make sure that we, and I say we as the international community, are providing
07:15 that diplomatic horizon, are empowering moderate political forces within Palestine and within
07:19 Israel and encouraging young people frustrated with this status quo, whether they're Israelis
07:24 or Palestinians, to invest instead in a nonviolent and diplomatic path towards peace and security
07:30 for both peoples.
07:31 Speaking of the diplomatic horizons, and I think we'll finish on this.
07:35 As far as the latest truce goes, it's likely to be extended.
07:40 But you think that once Israel gets its hostages back, it will continue its offensive as planned,
07:45 as many members of its government has suggested it will do.
07:48 So do you think that these truces can lead to any form of long-term peace?
07:53 This is the question.
07:54 I think what we've noticed in this truce is that the longer the guns are silent for, the
07:59 more diplomatic bandwidth there is for conversations to take place.
08:03 I think at the moment, Israel's stated war aims, the removal of Hamas and Hamas not to
08:08 be the governing authority inside the Gaza Strip, has so far appeared to be something
08:12 that can only be achieved by military ends if it can be achieved at all.
08:15 And I think what's interesting, with Secretary Blinken now arriving in Israel this week and
08:19 then going to the Gulf for meetings in the UAE, is to test the idea, and I don't know
08:24 whether this is viable, of whether you can get a version of that diplomatically and nonviolently,
08:29 and whether extending this particular ceasefire to get all of the hostages released, and remember
08:32 that is mandated under international law, could also provide the time and the space
08:37 for diplomatic ideas that would result in Hamas no longer being the governing authority
08:41 in the Gaza Strip, but maybe doing so without a recommencing of the sort of violence that
08:45 has plagued the last seven weeks.
08:47 That's what we have to see if it's viable.
08:49 John Linden of the Alliance for Middle East Peace, thank you very much.
08:53 Thank you.